by Emma Newman
“She can help us, we’re going to need someone on the inside,” Sam said. “The man who’s missing is the most important person in Aquae Sulis, which is like Bath but in the Nether, right?”
Ekstrand nodded. “She told you this?”
“Yeah, she explained it all to me. And she knows what an Xbox is.”
“A what-box?”
“Exactly! You said they aren’t connected with my world, with Mundanus, but she is, and you know why? Because she was telling the truth when she said she isn’t like them. Lady Rose sent these two weird, weird blokes to get the Master of Ceremonies, so if you want to find where he is, I reckon the best chance you’ve got is getting our friend Cathy here to milk her people for information.”
“Lady Rose is behind this?” The Sorcerer stroked his chin.
“And Rosas have come into Aquae Sulis for the season, two different families, for the first time ever,” Cathy said. “It can’t be a coincidence.”
Ekstrand was frowning at her. Sam could feel her shaking beneath his hand. “See? Cathy can help.”
“We have the right to make any enquiries we wish,” Max said. “If we question the Rosas, they have to cooperate.”
“Oh, come on,” Sam said. “If their boss is anything like that Lord Poppy bloke they’ll never tell the truth; they won’t want to land themselves in the shit!”
“We can make them tell the truth,” Max said. Sam believed him.
“But if they even get a hint of you coming after them, they’ll cover their tracks,” Cathy said.
“Yeah!” Sam agreed. “The lady’s got a point. And if they know you’re onto them, they might kill him, if they haven’t already.”
“I could spy for you,” Cathy said. “I have to go to the same functions as these people; now I know their patron is involved I can look more closely into what they’re doing. My father is on the Council of Aquae Sulis. I can find out more than the average person there.”
“This is most unorthodox,” Ekstrand muttered.
“That’s why it’ll work,” Sam said. “They’ll never see it coming. They’ll never guess someone in their world is actually working for you. See?”
“He has a point, sir,” Max said. “The puppet may well see and hear much more than we ever could.”
“Will you please stop calling me that!” Cathy said. “Look, if I’m going to help you bust one of the Fae, I think it’s only fair you help me in return.”
“Nothing has changed,” Ekstrand said. “You must cooperate because of your obligation to the Censor.”
“Oh, God,” Cathy mumbled, lowering her head. “This is a nightmare.”
“Sir, a word?” Max said, hobbling to a corner, where Ekstrand joined him.
“Would you like to sit down, Miss?” Axon asked and Cathy nodded. Sam helped to guide her to the chair.
“Axon, could we have something to drink? I’ll make sure she doesn’t go anywhere.”
Axon looked over to Ekstrand who nodded. Sam was sure that, if he wanted to, Ekstrand could keep her in the room regardless of who was watching.
Once the butler was gone, Sam crouched in front of her and took her hand. “We’ll sort something out,” he whispered. “Maybe if I told them why–”
“No, I’m not going to play the bloody victim card to every single bloke I come across. I didn’t want to show you. It’s embarrassing enough.”
“Stop whispering,” Ekstrand said and Sam stood, glaring at him.
The Sorcerer crossed the room, stood closer to Cathy than he had before and scrutinised her through the magnifying glass again. Cathy shifted uncomfortably, sensing his proximity.
“You will help us to find the Master of Ceremonies, be he alive or dead,” he finally said, making her jump. “And you will do this to fulfil your obligation to the Censor. However, if you prove to be capable, and help us to achieve our goal – with the minimum of fuss and with absolute discretion – I will offer you a favour in return for the next time you help me.”
“You’re more like the Fae than I bet you want to believe.” Cathy sounded exhausted.
“Insulting me is hardly going to aid your case,” Ekstrand said.
“I just hope we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement before the end of the season,” Cathy said.
“Why?”
“Because after that, your help is a lot less valuable to me.”
“We’ll see what happens,” Ekstrand said. “Now, Samuel, tell me more about these men you saw, every single detail, no matter how insignificant.”
“Can’t you take her blindfold off at least?” he asked.
“No.”
He sighed. “Sorry, Cathy.” She shrugged, but perked up at the sound of Axon returning with a clattering trolley of refreshments. Only Cathy accepted the offer of tea as Sam told them everything he remembered.
“So I think he must be dead,” Sam said when he’d finished. “That bundle didn’t move once.” He stuffed a tiny cucumber sandwich in his mouth, duty discharged.
“They could have used a Doll Charm,” Cathy said. “He wouldn’t have been able to fight back if they cast it on him unawares, and he wouldn’t have been able to move or speak.”
“Is that what happened to those people we saw in Exilium?” Sam asked but Ekstrand clicked his fingers.
“Focus!” he snapped. “The men you describe sound like the brothers Thorn to me. I’ll check once we’re done here. Now, pup–” He sighed. “Catherine?”
“Yes, Mr Sorcerer?”
“You said there are two Rosa bloodlines in Aquae Sulis for the season. Have you noticed anything about them so far?”
“The Albas brought an Indian princess to impress the Censor into letting them in. The Gallicas…well, there’s a rumour that they’ve found some deeds to a Nether property. Everyone’s going on and on about it.”
“A Rosa owning a property in Aquae Sulis?” Ekstrand exclaimed. “Nonsense! The Irises and Papavers have too strong a hold over the Council of Aquae Sulis and the Corporation of Bath to ever let a Rosa in. They don’t want their city to be overrun like Londinium was.”
“Yeah, that’s what people are saying, but the Gallica is smug enough for it to be true. If it is, you can bet your life they’ll hold a party there to show it off.”
“But it makes no sense,” Ekstrand muttered to himself. “Why are the Rosas interested in Aquae Sulis? They’ve always been content with Londinium.”
“It’s too much of a coincidence,” Max said. “You need to focus your attention on the Gallicas and, if you can get into this house, have a good look around.”
“I’ll get something for you to contact me should you find anything,” Ekstrand said, and left.
“The Gallica bloke is a complete git,” Cathy said in Max’s direction. “He tried to kill a mundane in London.”
Max frowned at that. “Did the London Arbiters intervene?”
“No, I saved the guy – that’s not widely known, OK? The Rosa didn’t seem to give a toss about the Arbiters showing up. It surprised me at the time actually. I guess you guys aren’t as scary in London.”
Max was silent then. Sam patted Cathy on the shoulder gently, wanting to reassure her but also wanting some contact with another person who felt just as nervous as him. She seemed to be dealing with it well. He wondered if she was panicking on the inside like he was. They were talking about things that were so outlandish he just wanted to go home and watch the football or have a takeaway, or both, something utterly normal in the world as he understood it. Exilium already seemed unreal in his memory. Had he imagined that place, the fairie, the door in the ground? If not, were they going to let him walk away having seen it all?
Ekstrand returned, holding a large tube and a wooden lozenge. He handed it to Max. “When you take her back, explain how this works to her.”
“Are you sure, sir?”
“It’s protected, one use only. Even if she gave it to the Fae, they’d be unable to use it; I’ve keyed it to her with
the hair I took earlier.”
“Yeah, about that,” Cathy began but Ekstrand didn’t let her continue.
“It’s time for you to leave now,” he said. “Once you find out anything that can connect the Gallicas to what happened to the Master of Ceremonies, contact me directly. Don’t go through the Censor, I don’t trust her.”
“What should I be looking for?” she asked as Axon took her sandwich plate.
“Anything that seems out of place,” Max said. “Keep an ear out for anything to do with these deeds and, if you get a chance, look around that house. Just don’t be obvious about it.”
“OK, I’ll do my best. Take care, Sam, OK?”
Axon gently took her hand and invited her to stand. “You too,” Sam said, wishing he could go with her. Preferably to a pub.
Once they’d left the house, Ekstrand called Petra back downstairs to the living room and, much to Sam’s surprise, she embraced him.
“I was so worried about you! What was it like?”
“Awful,” he said, and she responded with another longer embrace and back rubbing, like she’d known him for years. He tensed, unused to intimate contact from any woman other than his wife. Petra pulled away without any of the embarrassment he was feeling and retrieved a notepad from one of the chairs.
Ekstrand filled her in and she made detailed notes as Sam paced in front of the fire, thinking about what Cathy had told him. Life in the Nether sounded like Victorian England, and he worried that Cathy was going to be hurt again before anyone helped her. Sam had no idea how to find her again, not that he felt he could really help. If he was completely honest with himself he didn’t really want to get any more involved than he already was. He needed to get home and make sure his wife wasn’t going crazy with worry. Their marriage had enough pressures upon it without all of this too.
“The Master of Ceremonies told me about every single property in Aquae Sulis and all of the houses there are accounted for, that’s what I don’t understand,” Ekstrand was saying when Sam tuned back in. “None of them belong to the Rosas.”
“Perhaps it’s one he didn’t know about,” Petra suggested.
“Impossible.”
“Perhaps he was lying to you,” Sam said and was about to say his goodbyes when Ekstrand replied.
“Eminently possible, in fact, probable.”
“If we can find a link between that property and the Master of Ceremonies, we have a motive for murder,” Petra said, tapping her pen against her chin. “The Rosas would kill for a permanent ticket into Aquae Sulis.”
“You mean they’d kill a bloke just to nick his house?” Sam asked. “Couldn’t they just buy it from him instead?”
“You don’t understand,” Ekstrand sighed. “Nether properties can only be established by Fae or Sorcerers and the puppets can’t do it. It requires ownership of a mundane property too, as the Nether version is simply a…reflection of what exists in Mundanus. It can’t be conjured up out of thin air.”
“The Fae-touched of Aquae Sulis control ownership of desirable properties in Bath, and ones in the Nether, very strictly,” Petra added.
“Really?” Sam stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I’ve never heard anything about people stopping others buying houses. Surely that would come out in the press?”
“They own the press,” Petra said, smiling.
“This is one of those giant conspiracy theories, isn’t it?” Sam shook his head. “I don’t believe any of that stuff.”
“Do you think we would lie about this?” Ekstrand asked with a scowl.
Sam preferred him when he was being a teacher. The stage magician version of Mr Ekstrand was the wrong side of intense. “No, course not,” he said hurriedly. “It’s just a lot to take in.”
“Are you sure he’s worth the trouble?” Ekstrand directed the question at Petra.
“Yes, sir, but let’s keep focused on the house, shall we? Perhaps there’s something from the monitoring data that could give us something useful?”
“It would take months to review it,” the Sorcerer sighed. “Even if I set all of the apprentices to work.”
“Depends on what kind of data it is,” Sam said without thinking. When they both looked at him, he shrugged. “If it’s something that can be reduced to numerical values then a pretty basic script could analyse it. Most computers could handle something like that if there wasn’t too much d–”
“You mean you can actually do something useful with them?” Ekstrand looked shocked.
Sam smirked, at first thinking he was being sarcastic, but then he realised Ekstrand genuinely didn’t have a clue. “Have you ever seen a computer?”
Ekstrand wrinkled his nose, as if Sam had just asked him if he ate puppies for breakfast. “Goodness no, why in the worlds would I want to do that?”
“So you don’t know what Mundanus is like these days then?”
“I know enough.”
“You realise computers do everything there now, don’t you?”
Ekstrand blinked at him, then shot a nervous glance at Petra. “Is he trying to unsettle me?”
“Let’s talk about Mundanus another time, Mr Ekstrand. I believe Sam was offering to help with the data problem.”
Sam patted the air. “I was just theorising. I need to go home. To my wife, and my job.”
“Do you have a computer at home?” Ekstrand asked. After Sam’s nod he said; “Excellent, then you can go home and write us this ‘basic script’, yes?”
“I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t work for you. I just took a leak behind the wrong tree at the wrong time, none of this is anything I want to be involved in.”
“But you are involved now,” Ekstrand said. “That can’t be undone.”
Petra stepped forward after she brushed the Sorcerer’s arm. “Sam, we don’t want to frighten you, but you’ve seen things that most people aren’t supposed to know about.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” Sam said with a nervous laugh. “No one would believe me.”
“There are rules, old rules outlined in a treaty that mean we have to be very careful here. I’d like to think we could make the best of the situation by…finding a way to move forward that doesn’t involve compromising your freedom.”
Sam’s heart raced. “I’d like that too. How about I sign a non-disclosure agreement? I signed one for work, I’m trustworthy.”
“Petra, this is wasting time.” The Sorcerer glared at Sam.
“If we reimbursed you for your time, and drew up an agreement, would you write a script for your computer to help us?” Petra asked, unfazed by the Sorcerer’s menace.
Sam nodded, happy to agree just to make it out of the house. “What kind of data is it?”
“Lines on large rolls of paper,” Ekstrand replied.
“Like data from a seismograph,” Petra clarified.
“So we’d be looking for anomalies, right? I could write a script for that. If you want the results quickly I’d need someone to input the data for me because that’s what will take the time. I’d tell them how to translate the readings. I could get that part set up whilst I work on the script. We could start today if you let me go home.” He hoped he didn’t sound too desperate. He was ready to promise a lot more if it meant they would let him go.
Ekstrand looked uncomfortable. “Petra, can you deal with this?”
“Of course, sir, but I doubt you want me to accompany Sam back to Mundanus?”
“Absolutely not, I’ll send one of the apprentices with him.”
“I’ll take care of the details, sir,” Petra reassured him, and the Sorcerer left with a flourish of his cape. Sam imagined dramatic old-fashioned film score music to accompany it.
“He’s certainly eccentric,” he said.
“He’s a brilliant man,” Petra replied. “Now, let me get that data for you and we’ll make a plan.”
27
Sam was not in the best mood when he finally got home. He’d been dropped off by Axon with several boxe
s of paper and Eagerboy, who was positively fizzing with excitement at his new assignment.
Axon assured him he’d delivered his note two days before, but there was no doubt that Leanne would be frantically worried by now. His returning home with a strange bloke on top of disappearing without warning wasn’t going to help either. He’d spent the journey cooking up an explanation for the apprentice’s strange manner and clothing, readying himself for the challenge, only to find the house was empty with a pile of post on the mat. Sitting on top was the note Axon had delivered.
“Lee?” he called up the stairs. Nothing.
He pointed the living room out to Eagerboy, whose name was actually Gordon, but he didn’t suit it. “Go and take a seat, I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Thank you,” he said, eyes wide, darting from one thing to another so quickly he looked like he was about to have some sort of fit.
Sam went up the stairs, peered into the bedroom. The bed was made. He checked the wardrobes, imagining them filled with empty coat hangers, but all of her clothes were there. He breathed out, some of the tension easing. The memory of their last argument was still fresh.
He wanted to shower, eat, drink a beer and catch up on the football, but Eagerboy needed to be put to work before he started asking annoying questions. Sam padded back down the stairs into the kitchen where he could smell something mouldy.
He flicked on the light and saw the saucepan from their aborted meal still on the stove, something green and fuzzy growing a new skin over the remains of the sauce. He opened the oven and saw the large dish, still full, where it had been left.
Leanne hadn’t been home either.
Jaw clenching, he went to the hallway and saw the little red light flashing on the answering machine he always forgot to check. The display told him there were ten messages.
She’d left him? He pressed the play button and sat on the bottom stair, chewing a thumbnail.
“Sam, are you there? Look, I have to go to Brussels, something’s come up and we need to fly there right now. I should be back late tomorrow, OK? We’ll talk when I get home.”
The date stamp was late that Saturday night. That was three days ago. The noise in the background suggested she was calling from her mobile somewhere noisy, like the party she was at perhaps.